Wait For Me
by Darkflames and fire
Summary: With pain in his heart and memories of Lightning Farron spiraling around in his head, Hope must decide what to do now. Final Fantasy XIII-2 if Hope had come along. From Hope's point of view. Hope x Light. Rating upped to T to be safe after my first battle scene.
1. Wait For Me

This story is in the honor of 'AssasinZAssasin' who inspired me to write Final Fantasy Stories. Thanks Bro.

Thought of this after Serah said "You've been looking for her too" or something along those lines. Just short drabble to get in to FF 13-2. Don't give me any spoiler reviews please. I have only gotten slightly farther than this so far.

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

* * *

I watch Serah and Noel walk away with a slight twinge of pain growing in my heart. I had never expected to see Serah again, and had even less expected this pain to come with the meeting. What about her presence brought this pain upon me?

She had said she was looking for Lightning. She said I had been looking for her too in awe. It hurts to see that I caused her pain by not telling her of my search. Truthfully, I thought everyone had forgotten about me but that doesn't really matter, back to the task at hand.

What should I do now?

It was a simple question. It was a simple answer if thought out logically. I would stay here in the ruins, researching all of the new artifacts we find. It was too bad I don't think logic is the right answer here.

My mind made up, I walk to Alyssa and begin speaking.

"Alyssa, I need you to do something for me..."

* * *

That is how I find myself in my current position, standing beside a portal through time, and waiting for Serah and Noel to come. I guess I got lucky that they decided to stock up on some items before coming here, otherwise my chance would have been lost.

I hear them rounding the corner, talking. Noel apparently has something on his mind, but he won't tell Serah about it. She will get him to talk eventually, I'm sure of it. They finally get here and become quiet when they see me. I must look weird, dressed in my traveling clothes.

They looked much like Lightning's apparel from our time as l'cie, except (of course) altered for a man.

"Hope, what are you doing here?" Serah asked me, her curiosity obvious.

I debate in my head whether I should tell them the truth or not. If I lied, there wouldn't be too many questions, and that may be better. If I told the truth, there was a better chance they would let me come with them, and it would avoid awkward confrontation later.

I chose the truth.

"There's something you need to know before I tell you why I'm here." I tell her. I decide to get this off my chest before telling them why so as to make explanations easier. "Serah, I'm in love with your sister. That is why I have been looking for her through my studies, but I realize now that that is not enough. You have a better chance of finding her than I ever could, and I want to help with that. Will you guys let me come with you?" There, it was said. I couldn't tell what Serah was thinking, but at least it didn't look like she was going to kill me.

"That would be great!" she exclaims, shocking both me, and Noel with her enthusiasm. "But what about your job?" she asks, calming down a bit.

"Already quit." I answer, "Alyssa has already taken over my position."

"That leaves no problems then." Noel says, speaking for the first time since they got here. "Let's go."

They begin to power up the portal, and I look to the sky while they do so, as if it would have all the answers. I find nothing but new resolve in the dark twilight.

_'Wait for me Light.'_

**'I love you'**

* * *

Sorry if it was bad. I could repost in neutral POV if you would like it better. Probably going to make this a story as some people want it. I will go it along with when I get somewhere important in the game.


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second chapter. We are now in Oerba 200AF. Hope you like. (Pun intended) Also, as a good note, I'll try to brush over unimportant battle scenes because I suck at it, but ones like in this chapter I will probably do to give it more of the game feeling.

I disclaim like a boss.

* * *

When we come out of the Historia Crux, I feel a little queasy so I bend over and take deep breaths. Noel takes a look at me and laughs a bit.

"Yeah, that feeling will happen the first few times." he says, "You'll get used to it."

While I highly doubt that I will ever get used to **THAT**, I give him a nod and we start walking, hoping to find something of use. I observe our surroundings as we walk and slowly start remembering this place. It's Oerba! This place looks almost exactly the same as the last time I was here. We even seem to be taking the same path, being as I just saw Vanille and Fang's house.

I get a solemn look on my face from seeing that. We had all sat around in that house and talked endlessly for the few days that we stayed here. It was the place where I learned the most about Light, and where Vanille and Fang had seemed happiest.

We soon find ourselves in front of some sort of time anomaly, which Serah quickly resolves by drawing lines of power between crystals. It must be some part of the powers that Lightning left her with. As we go along, we resolve a few more of these anomalies and explore the village of Oerba until we come to the roof of a building that was obviously used as a garden of sorts.

There is something on a pedestal by the main portion of the garden and we move towards it. As we get closer, I realize that it's another Oracle Drive. Serah moves up to examine it closer while I examine the area around us. Something is odd here, while all of the other places we have been to were overridden with dust, this place is completely clean. If that wasn't enough, there are signs of somebody else's footprints, and they are recent.

I look back to Serah and Noel to see what they were doing, only to find a little girl standing next to me. She is looking at Serah, who was about to activate the Oracle Drive.

"Stop," she says quietly, but with just enough volume for Serah and Noel to hear. Everybody's attention is now on the girl, who seems unfazed by our gazes. While Serah's concentration is on the girl, her hand gives the slightest brush to the Oracle Drive, activating it with a burst of light, shocking Serah enough to make her fall over. Luckily, Noel was there to catch her.

The picture shows what had happened after the fall of Cocoon. The memories of the version only Serah and I remember. They depict Lightning watching as Serah and Dajh come from the fallen Cocoon, now uncrystalized. Serah and Lightning call to each other as Serah advances, and she grows closer with every second. They embrace, Lightning apologizing for no apparent reason.

Serah looks shocked and breaks away from the embrace, questions obviously on her lips, but Snow arrives before she can say anything. He gives Serah a quick hug before reprimanding Lightning for apologizing and making a remark about planning the wedding.

The fourteen year old me goes up to them, and I realize how much different I look now from those ten years ago. The me in the memory teases Snow about not wasting any time, and Snow gives a comment about me 'not missing a beat'. Everybody laughs, and Snow actually asks Lightning for permission to marry this time, along with a promise to make Serah happy.

Lightning smiles, commenting that she believes him, essentially giving them her blessing to marry. The Oracle Drive begins to just show short flashes of things, and Serah starts to talk about what we're seeing.

"My memories... they're real, aren't they?" she implores to know one in particular. I decide to give her an answer anyway.

"They're both our memories." I tell her encouragingly, "We both know the truth, and I will help you find her." She smiles sadly at me.

"But how can they be the truth." she asks, looking at herself crying in the memory while Snow tries comforting her. Her eyes widen as she realizes something. "The prophecy... it's been changed!" she exclaims, falling to her knees. I move to help her up while Noel looks at the Drive and says that it's impossible.

An ominous voice suddenly sounds from all around us, speaking about what has happened.

"If you change the future, you change the past." he says from his spot in the oracle Drive's vision. His back is to us, so I can't make out his features, but he has long hair from what I see. Serah speaks to him, hoping the man would respond.

"So it's always changing?" she asks him. The man in the image turns his head to seemingly look at us.

"Change is the constant." he says ominously, turning around fully. He swings the large sword he holds, shattering the image that was made and solidifying him in front of us.

"Interesting." I say, "You appear to have excellent control of the Historia Crux or the timeline to be able to do that. Tell me, what is your name?" I ask him, knowing not to expect an answer, but doing so out of curiosity. Noel obviously knows the man, and growls out his name when he didn't speak.

"Caius!" he says, stepping in front of Serah with his swords drawn. I sigh and figure I should do something so I take out my boomerang from its pouch. The girl from before begins speaking, and we turn out attention to her as she walks towards us.

"I have seen you," she says in a mysteriously monotone voice, "I have seen all three of you." She walks past us without saying anything else, coming to a stop when Noel moves in front of her and grabs her shoulders.

"Yeul." he breathes out. Obviously, he knows her. Serah speaks next, and I keep an eye on Caius.

"What? You mean the seeress?" she asks. Serah is ignored for the moment by the two, but the Yeul begins speaking to Noel.

"I am not the Yeul you know." she says, voice staying completely even, even though she was being grabbed by somebody bigger than her.

"B-But..." Noel stutters out, but he just ends up moving to the side as she puts her head down. She walks toward Caius, and then stands at his side while he speaks.

"You must understand, there are many Yeuls." he said, smirking slightly.

"Caius..." Noel says angrily, once again.

"Wait." Serah says, obviously readying a question, "I saw you. My sister was fighting you." she says. I understand the importance of her words. The fact that he was fighting Lightning and is now here could only mean three things. One, Lightning beat Caius and he retreated. Two, Caius can be in two places at once. Or three, the most worrying, he had defeated and killed Light.

Tears sprung to my eyes thinking of that possibility but I quickly waved those thoughts away.

"Don't worry, Serah." I whisper to her while Noel interrogates Caius about why he's here, "Light wouldn't be defeated by the likes of him." She looked at me and nodded, also brushing tears out of her eyes. Caius began talking again.

"I learned of your journey, leaping back and forth along the timeline." he says in the same tone of voice Barthandelus had used, it implied that he thought he had everything under his control. "Yeul has been watching everything you do." I understood then. Caius thought that by having the Yeul, who could see the past and future, he could predict and cancel out every move we make. While him and Noel had some talk, I thought of a strategy that might make him lose his guard.

He moves forward and holds his sword at a forty-five degree angle, creating an odd glow of power. He spoke about preserving the sanctity of the timeline by killing us, and I decided to reflect on that later. It was time to put my plan into action. He was moving towards us, preparing to strike when I spoke.

"So you can't do much on your own power, huh?" I ask, inwardly smirking at the look of aggravation crossing his features at my words.

"What do you mean by that, whelp?" Caius asks me slowly, trying to preserve his temper and pride. I decide to continue until I antagonize him to attack. When he does so, he will be attacking blindly, therefore exponentially increasing our chances of winning a battle against him.

"I mean," I continue, "You can't label any of this as any of your own work. You had to request the help of the Yeul to find us at all. I doubt you even scratched Lightning. You're a sorry excuse for a villain, I'll tell you that." That last line did the trick, and Caius charged me out of rage.

I easily sidestep the attack, electrifying my boomerang and smacking him on the head with it as he passes. My preemptive strike done, the real battle begins. Noel begins defending us using his mediguard and Serah shoots at Caius with her bow as I uses my powers (which stayed even after losing my mark) to buff up their resistances.

Now that they have all I could give them, I start cast a few curas before laying into Caius with my elemental attacks. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia using my magic. I remember the end of our journey where Lightning and I had ended up doing nearly everything (her having the most strength out of the group and I with the most magic) in our fights.

We stagger him eventually, and everybody switches to using physical attacks to maximize damage. Noel makes a quick dash past Caius, using both swords to slash the man as he passed. Serah keeps raining a barrage of arrows down on Caius to keep him distracted. I will go in for the final blow just before he regains his bearings.

With a quick slash and jump, I knock him into the air and get ready to use smite for only about the third time in my life. As I bring down the sharpened edge of my boomerang on him, an odd glow appears around him. It is too late to stop, so I follow through with the attack and Caius hits the ground with a loud thud.

All too quickly, he is up and seems to float over to land on the edge of a fountain that sits by the pedestal with the Oracle Drive on it.

"You will pay for your crimes in blood." he states. Noel, Serah, and I take a step or two back, preparing for what was coming. He raises his sword parallel to his face and makes a battle yell of sorts. Purple energy flows into the blade, and after few seconds, he pushes the tip forward slightly, creating a beam of energy that reminded me of a sword slash if it went on as a blast.

Serah is in the way of the blast, so I quickly grab her and bring her to my chest, out of the way of the blast. The blast shoots past the boundaries of the roof and blows off one of the edges. Noel calls out to us, but is distracted when Caius sends another wave his way. He dodges, moving right next to us in the process.

With one final swing of his sword, a massive wave of energy is flung toward us, hitting us dead on. Noel and Serah end up on either side of me, as I pushed them out of the way. The space immediately behind me is now a large hole where the skylight used to be.

Caius seems to float backwards until he stands on the edge of the fountain that lies just behind the pedestal with the Oracle Drive on it. He starts to move towards Noel, no doubt intending to finish us off now that we were too injured to move. Serah was knocked out for the moment.

"Stop this Caius." Noel says. "I am not going to fight you." Caius moves to stand over Noel, his armor glinting in the sunlight.

"Times have changed." Caius says in reply, looking down at Noel. I'm trying to find the strength to move, but a slash wound on my chest and a broken leg aren't helping me any. "I am not the Caius you once knew." He puts the tip of his blade in Noel's face. "To change history is a sin." Him and Noel seem to be having a stare down, and I close my eyes and wait for the finishing move. It never happens, as the Yeul speaks once again.

"It's too late." she says, holding up a flower and inspecting it. she turns around. "The timeline has already changed." When she get near to Caius, I am surprised when he turns to her, impaling his sword in the roof and bowing down to her. An interesting turn indeed.

"But, must we accept this, Yeul?" he asks her, as if talking to a great deity. She puts her hand on his shoulder and nods to him as he looks at her, and we look in confusion as she walks towards us. She pulls up the veil-like helmet to show her face.

"If you change the future, you change the past. You can remold history as your heart desires." she says to us. Caius comes behind her, almost looking like a bodyguard.

"let's go now," he says, "before you have to witness more. The Yeul nods once again, and Caius somehow opens a portal to transport them somewhere unknown. It appears he does have some sort of control over the Historia Crux. When they disappear, we are only left with an artifact, and it appears to be, more questions. I notice Noel whisper the word 'Yeul' again.

We sit around for a bit, recuperating after the long battle. I use a bit of healing magic to fix my chest and leg, and now I feel better. Once we grab the artifact, Noel mutters angrily under his breath about Caius, and Serah asks Noel who he is.

"That man, Caius. Who is he exactly? I've seen his face before... In my dream." she states, pacing around as if it would help.

"I thought I recognized him." Noel states angrily. "But I don't think he's the man I used to know. He couldn't be here, not in this time." I decide to add my two cents to this.

"It appears he has expert control over the Historia Crux to be able to do all that he did while he was here." I say, "Maybe he was taught about the timeline." Both Noel and Serah look at me after I say that, as if I'm crazy. "Something wrong?" I ask, worried. Serah snaps out of it and blushes a bit out of embarrassment.

"No, it's just... we didn't really expect you to know so much about this. It's standard issue stuff for the academy though, isn't it?" I get a little more solemn when I answer.

"No, I learned all about this while I was searching for Light." I say quietly, head hung down. I try to perk up, because I know Serah will get sad if I'm sad. "Don't worry though. We'll find her. Together." I tell her. Serah smiles brightly at me, and I once again marvel at how much she looks like Lightning. I still swear they could be twins.

"Okay, then." Noel says, breaking up the little moment. "We should get going now." Me and Serah nod our agreement and we once again start moving through Oerba.

* * *

Oh dear god that was hard. I ended up writing this literally as I was playing the game. You have no idea how hard it is to keep stopping in those cut scenes to describe what everybody does and says _**PLUS**_ add in Hope somewhere along the line. Anyway, the chapter's length will vary depending on what I do, so expect updates to be sporadic along with length and meaning. I'm literally taking half of this from my game storyline so I can only write when I play. Thanks for reading. Bye.


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